USAID is in the midst of a staffing crisis, and it’s trying to hire aggressively to tackle the issue. But what does the agency pay? Here’s what we know.
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Pay day
USAID has advertised 748 jobs on Devex’s job board in the last 12 months, with roles based all over the globe. Most jobs come with a salary range, depending on experience, and my colleague Kristiana Louise Ortega analyzed all of them to find out what the average minimum and maximum salaries were, depending on location.
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The best paid job — deputy assistant inspector general, based in the United States — came with an annual salary of up to $221,900. The worst paid, a program management assistant in Zambia, stood at $6,163.
The average North American salary range was from $124,549 to $166,230.
Read more: What we know about job salaries at USAID (Career)
+ On July 25, my colleague Elissa Miolene will be talking to experts about how USAID is progressing on some of its key targets around localization. Save your spot now to be a part of the discussion.
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Funding activity
We publish tenders, grants, and other funding announcements on our Funding Platform. Here are some of the ones which have been viewed the most in the past 10 days.
USAID will provide $100 million in urgent humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to address severe food insecurity and support safe aid delivery.
The Inter-American Development Bank is seeking qualified consulting firms to conduct a digital communications campaign to increase awareness of investment opportunities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
South Korean development agency KOICA is providing $6 million to support women and girls displaced by violence in Mozambique.
The Asian Development Bank has approved a $100 million loan to help small and medium-sized enterprises in Sri Lanka.
The United Nations Development Programme is seeking a local partner to strengthen collaboration between civil service organizations and the government in preventing violent extremism and promoting social cohesion in Tajikistan.
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Hard to do
The end of last month saw USAID’s quarterly business forecast call with partners. This time, one of the key things on the agenda was federal grant-giving guidelines, which are undergoing sweeping changes. These changes are broadly seen as positive — they’ll involve less red tape, and they should help level the playing field for smaller contractors.
But they will also involve a lot of work for the agency, and there are concerns about whether USAID has the resources to implement these sweeping shifts.
Read: Will this change to federal guidance speed up USAID localization? (Pro)
Bill cuts billions
The U.S. House of Representatives last week laid down a marker, according to independent analysts within the development sector, with the passing of a bill that would slash billions from the country’s foreign aid budget.
The bill is unlikely to pass through the Democrat-controlled Senate or White House. But within a few months, both of those institutions could be under Republican control, and this is a statement of intent for what could happen next.
Read: Billions slashed in House's 'meat cleaver approach' to foreign affairs
While the House appears to be gunning for USAID, the same can’t be said for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Lawmakers have approved a measure that would extend the agency's ability to operate for seven years, double its investment cap to $120 billion, and expand the number of countries where DFC can invest.
Read: House committee approves bill extending, enhancing US DFC (Pro)
+ Catch up on our coverage of news and analysis on the U.S. aid sector.
A new ’liese of life
We’ve spent the past year expecting a Labour victory in the U.K. elections, bringing with it a new international development minister. And indeed, that’s what happened.
But it wasn’t the minister anyone expected. Lisa Nandy, a well-regarded former charity worker who had held the post of shadow minister for international development, was unexpectedly shuffled into a different job. Her replacement, Anneliese Dodds, is comparatively unknown — at least in aid. Dodds is also in charge of a second brief — women and equalities — in an entirely different department.
None of this is seen as ideal by aid sector leaders, who are understandably worried about where they sit in the new government’s list of priorities.
Read: Who is Anneliese Dodds, the new UK development minister? (Pro)
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About the author
David Ainsworth@daveainsworth4
David Ainsworth is business editor at Devex, where he writes about finance and funding issues for development institutions. He was previously a senior writer and editor for magazines specializing in nonprofits in the U.K. and worked as a policy and communications specialist in the nonprofit sector for a number of years. His team specializes in understanding reports and data and what it teaches us about how development functions.
